The Wife by Alafair Burke

When Burke opens the novel, Angela Powell is finding out an incident at her husband's office through his eyes.  The young woman went on and on about her engagement and he made a comment about being too young to get married and her getting upset about it.  You read the police report where she seems suspicious in her nonanswers.  You like Angela and you know that she went through something traumatic when she was a teenager, that she was kidnapped by a man held captive for three years before being found with a kid, named Spencer.  You don't want her world to explode with a true accusation of sexual harassment.  But then you watch as she doesn't mean to help them dismantle that case by blaming the victim.

The ADA leaks the case to the press hoping to get more accusations to come forward.  And one does. A Kelly Lynch accuses him of raping her.  She has pictures of belt strap marks on her wrists and his DNA on her underwear and her skirt.  Jason Powell explains to his wife that he had an affair with her but that he didn't rape her.  That she was helping him take down her company Oasis which was doing questionable business practices and that he had brought together with some investors. But if they were not on the up and up he had wanted to know about it and to end his relationship with them and to bring them down too.

Angela's best friend Susanna senses that she isn't telling her everything when Angela starts to tell her about a bad night she and Jason had, Susanna gives her a paper on when women don't realize they've been raped.  Now, things don't look too good for Jason.  Burke emotionally manipulates you from the very start making you feel guilty for not wanting to believe the young intern to the very end of the book where a surprise awaits you.  To be honest this book pissed me off with its emotional wrangling.  But I believe I just didn't like being manipulated to this degree.  If I am being honest I would give it two stars for being poorly written, but I think I am letting something that the author did well affect my judgment on this review.  I, therefore, give it an extra star for the work she put into it.

Link to Amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/Wife-Novel-Psychological-Suspense/dp/0062390511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546262794&sr=8-1&keywords=the+wife+alafair+burke

Star Wars Vol. 4: Last Flight of the Harbinger by Jason Aaron (Writer), Chris Eliopoulos (Writer, Artist, Letterer), Mike Mayhew (Artist), Jorge Molina (Artist), Matt Milla (Colorist), Jordie Bellaire (Colorist) Scott Hanna (Inker), Joe Caramagna (Letterer),

This comic features the Scar Command, an elite stormtrooper fighting squad that is now being led by former Imperial spy Sergeant Kreel known as the Gamemaster who was the warden on the infamous smuggler's moon Nar Shaddaa.  A man who answers directly to Darth Vader and who has come up against Luke Skywalker in the past.

Luke and Leia get it into their heads to steal a star destroyer in order to break a blockade covering planet Tureen VII who have been loyal to the Rebels and are paying for it with the blockade.  There is no way through the blockade but if they stole a star destroyer and attacked the blockade with it, providing cover for the Rebel forces to come in after to take care of the rest of the ships, then they could break the blockade.

They attack the ship and Luke flies his ship on board the Harbinger star destroyer to help blow the engine. Everyone will have used escape pods or flown off of the ship to have gotten off the ship by then because the ship was getting ready to blow up.  Instead of blowing up the ship goes to hyperspace, leaving behind an impressive explosion.

It takes two thousand to run a star destroyer but they have around two hundred.  However, they aren't the only ones on board the ship. Stalking the ship is the Scar Command set on taking back the ship for the Empire.  Captain Sana, Han's ex-wife is also on board helping out Luke, Leia, Han, and the gang against these unwanted guests.  Also included at the beginning is a short story from the diary of Obi-Wan Kenobi about when Luke was a kid and a comic at the end dedicated to the memory of Kenny Baker who portrayed R2D2 and shows the droid having an adventure.  This was an excellent comic which is what you would expect from Jason Aaron who wrote it. It lets you see life from the stormtrooper's side for a change and the plot was unique and really cool. The art was so amazing that at times I felt I was looking at a photograph.  I give this book five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Vol-Flight-Harbinger-ebook/dp/B01NH4Y224/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545854014&sr=8-1&keywords=star+wars+volume+4+last+of+the+harbingers

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

"The Interdependency with it's religious and social ethos of interconnectedness combined with a guild-centered, monopolistic economy, they'd created possibly the most ridiculously complex method of ensuring the formal caste system of nobles intertwined with a merchant class, and common workers underneath, complicated proceeding even further.  And yet it worked. It worked because on a social level, apparently enough people wanted it to, and because at the heart of it, billions of humans living in fragile habitats prone to mechanical and environmental breakdowns and degradation, and with limited natural resources, were better off relying on each other than trying to go it alone. Even without the Interdependency being interdependent was the best way for humanity to survive." (The Collapsing Empire p 276)  At the head of the whole thing is the emperox who had the largest guild, was the head of the church, and had a seat on parliament.

River-like things called Flows are located between habitats with one Flow going in and one going out to a particular habitat.  The Hub is the only one that has Flows going to nearly all habitats. The End is the only habitat that you can grow things on in the ground.  The Flow leading from the End to the Hub has collapsed.  It is the first but it won't be the last to do so.  The emperox's scientist from the End Lord Marce is studying this problem and what can be done while the Emperox Grayland II is dealing with the church, the parliament, and the guilds by saying she has had visions just like the first Emperox Rachela I did.   She is trying to get her kingdom to accept the collapse of the Flow system that will leave the habitats isolated and the Interdependency no more.

Meanwhile, her two Wu cousins are both working to overthrow her and put themselves on the throne.  One wants to work with the House of Nohamapetan through the Countess and her daughter Nadashe who is in prison for treason and trying to murder the emperox and for murdering her own brother the man who was in contention to be the emperox's consort.  Jasin Wu tries to have her murdered in prison while Deran saves her life.

Countess Nohamapetan does not have control of her House finances, Lady Kiva of Legos does.  I love Lady Kiva. She's such a cool bitch and a half.  She knows what she wants and goes after it, but it you cross her you better think about moving to another planetary code before she can find you and mess you up.  She becomes a close ally to the emperox and helps her with the work she needs to get done, especially against the Nohampetan.

Lord Marce who first figured out there were problems with the Flow and is the scientist trying to figure out the problems of the Flow and Emperox Grayland II become closer emotionally and she wants them to become closer physically but how to go about it?  It's pretty funny how she does.  This book is quirky and funny in its own way.  The characters are great. Nadashe is cunning and ruthless and out to win the crown for herself in the way she wants to as soon as she can get out of this prison situation which she sees as a temporary setback.  Scalzi in this series writes very strong female characters. I applaud him for this.  Not that there aren't strong male characters in this novel. Lord Marce is one as is Lord Assan a member of the executive committee of the Interdependency that consisted of members of the guild, parliament, and the head of the church.  Lord Assan plotted cross-purposes with the Wus trying to decide which one to back.  He is a real asshole, which he would tell you himself.  This is a stellar book and I would give it more than five stars if I could, but since my meter only goes to five I'll have to settle for giving it a strong five stars out of five.

Quotes

The now-dead-and-somewhat-smeary Amit Nohamapetan’s office was room was befitted the head of his family’s operations in the Hub system, tastefully appointed in the manner that strongly implied it was furnished entirely through the preferences of a hired interior decorator rather than Amit’s own inclinations, if he had any, which he probably hadn’t, and landed with all the modern technological assistants and innovations that any modern executive could want or need. “All except for a ‘Hey your fucking sister is planning to shove a shuttle up your ass’ alert,” Kiva thought to herself.  Which to be fair was admittedly a specialized item.

-John Scalzi (The Consuming Fire p 70)

  

Kiva considered that she might be developing a thing for Fundapeldo, which on the one hand was a very not-Kiva thing to do, but on the other hand who gave a fuck if it was “not-Kiva”, because she wasn’t some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

-John Scalzi (The Consuming Fire p 296)             

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Consuming-Fire-Interdependency-John-Scalzi/dp/0765388979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545837790&sr=8-1&keywords=the+consuming+fire

Lark! The Herald Angels Sing by Donna Andrews

It's Christmas time in Caerphilly and Meg Langslow is in charge of the children's Christmas pageant at Trinity Church.  In all of the excitement they don't at first realize that the baby in the manger isn't Pastor Robyn's child Noah, but a baby girl, Lark, with a note attached to her claiming to be the child of Rob Langslow, Meg's brother and that the mother just couldn't take care of the child anymore.  Meg calls Chief Burke in order to get to the bottom of this.

The problem is that Rob's fiery-tempered red-haired girlfriend Delaney, whom he has been trying to figure out a way to propose to does not take this news well at all.  Because even if the DNA test comes back negative it doesn't mean that he wasn't sleeping with the woman at the same time he was starting to date her.  Meg gets the idea from grandfather and his talk of cuckoo birds that the mother might hang around and see that her daughter is safe before leaving.  So the Shifleys set up a guard around her house and sure enough, they find her.

It turns out that she is Janet Caverly whose husband is being falsely accused in Clay County, the Hatfield to Caerphilly's McCoys, of killing a Plunket or a Dingle one of the families in Clay County.  One of the Sherriff's men actually did it and put the blame on her husband Mark.  He either won't survive to the trial or he'll get railroaded into a long jail sentence since both the Sheriff, the mayor, and the judge is all Dingles.  Mark was there as an accountant and uncovered misuse of funds as well as the sale of moonshine and marijuana.  He had a contact in the government but it appears that that contact was crooked because now he and his family are on the run separately.

But now they have had word that the Dingles have captured Mark so the Shifleys have gone in to try to rescue him.  On their own, grandfather, Meg's dad, her brother, Clarence the vet, and members of Blake's brigade, the animal rescue unit of her grandfather have decided to go in and attempt a rescue of Mark themselves.  Meg calls Janet's friend Rachel who lives and works in Clayville and finds out from her that both groups have been arrested.  Now it's up to the women to do what they can to get the men out of the jam they have gotten themselves in.  They plan on bringing Christmas to Clayville.  Normally when a mystery series book doesn't have a mystery to solve it ticks me off. But this book was just so funny and perfect for Christmas.  One of my favorite new characters from the series Ekaterina is in it using her spy equipment and know how.  You really wonder where the story is going to go about halfway through because it doesn't seem to have a direction without a mystery or a body to follow. But Andrews quickly fixes that in a hilarious way.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely read it again next Christmas.  I give this book the highest I can give it: five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/Lark-Herald-Angels-Sing-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B079DVPYQR/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545661034&sr=8-1&keywords=lark+the+herald+angels+sing+by+donna+andrews

DC Universe Rebirth Harley Quinn Vol 1: Die Laughing by Amanda Conner (Writer), Jimmy Palmiotti (Writer), John Timms (Artist), Chad Hardin (Artist), Bret Bevins (Artist), Joseph Michael Linsner (Artist), Jill Thompson (Artist, Colorist), Alex Sinclair (Colorist), Hi-Fi (Colorist), and Dave Sharpe (Letterer)

This book is broken into three stories. The first story is about a teenage alien who comes to earth and thinking that cows were the higher species, pretends to be one on a farm where they slaughter cows.  He gets slaughtered and turned into meat that goes into hot dogs that get sold to Nate-Mate hot dog stand.  When people eat the hot dogs with the alien in it they become flesh-eating zombies.  Harley's teammate Toolkit gets bit by one, so Harley slices off his arm. She then catapults him into the local hospital with the arm in a cooler so it can be reattached when she realizes that getting bit by a zombie does not necessarily make you a zombie.  The rest of her teammates hold up at the bumper cars and get rescued by Poison Ivey with a weed whacker.  They have to find a way out of the bubble that has encased Coney Island.  Meanwhile, the parents of the alien are on the lookout for their son and are wondering what on earth could have happened to him.

In the second story, Bolly Quinn from India has roped Harley in on a mission to stop an organization from ripping off grannies of their hard earned money through telemarketing.  The third story is about a punk rock group called the Purple Satins who go around dressed as knights and steal from others. Harley is interested in getting them because they killed her favorite postman and stole a package meant for her from Arkham.  The Police Commissioner is willing to give her some reward money if she can take care of this problem for him since one of their members is a Senator's son and they keep getting away with it because of this.

Harley gets the idea to form a band of her own and infiltrate them that way.  With Tony on guitar, Eggie on drums, and Toolkit with his problem arm on bass they make an awful band, but with Harley's flair for the dramatic they pull it off and get in close with the Purple Satins.  Now to figure out what they are up to. To be honest, this comic was a big let down to me.  I mean, going after telemarketers and a rogue teenage alien chopped up in a hot dog?  The stories were all pretty lame. I didn't even finish the book.  I love Harley and her psychotic self,  but this was way more ditz than psycho and the author surrounded her with idiots and such a large cast its hard to keep track of everyone. The art, however, is still pretty good, though and worth half a star.  I give this book two and a half stars out of five. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Harley-Quinn-2016-Vol-Laughing-ebook/dp/B01M0DN1SL/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1545410443&sr=1-1&keywords=dc+universe+rebirth+harley+quinn

Gambit: Classic Vol. 1 by Chris Claremont (Writer), Howard Mackie (Writer), Bill Jaaska (Penciler), Mike Collins (Penciler), Jim Lee (Penciler), Lee Weeks (Penciler), Joe Rubinstein (Inker), Whilce Portacio (Inker), Scott Williams (Inker), Klaus Janson (Inker), Mike Rockwitz (Colorist), Brad Vancata (Colorist), Glynis Oliver (Colorist), Steve Buccellato (Colorist), Christie Scheele (Colorist), Joe Rosen (Letterer), Pat Brosseau (Letterer), Tom Orzechowski (Letterer), and Richard Starkings (Letterer) and Comicraft (Letterer)

This book is separated into two stories: one where Gambit is brought into the X-Men by Storm and one of Gambit's own involving his home life back in New Orleans.  In the first one, the Nanny has regressed Storm back to a child and given her false memories.  She has turned back into being a thief in Cairo. But she has memories of an older woman who looks like her and of other people. Memories of a life that is different than the one that is in her mind now.  Now she is in America stealing from bad people and returning what they stole.  The problem is the Shadow King is after her and at one of her heists she runs into Gambit who saves her life and the two become pals and go up against both the Shadow King and the Nanny.

In the second half of the book, Gambit finds out that the Tithe is due, which it shouldn't be because he brokered a peace between the Assassins and the Thieves when he killed Assassin Julian and his sister Bella Donna died.  Only Julian isn't completely dead and Bella Donna isn't completely dead, which leaves him and Rogue on shaky ground since Bella Donna is his wife.  Since Gambit, or Remy Lembeu, married Bella Donna he belongs to the Assassins clan now not the Thieves.  The Tithing Man is coming with the elixir of life to give it to the Thieves but it can save Bella Donna or give Julian the full life he needs.  After he died he was given the elixir and brought back to life, but it only partly worked.  He needs the elixir to keep him strong.

There's a fight for that year's elixir from Candra the giver of the elixir that will involve going to Chandra to get part of it as there are three vials of the elixir that must be mixed together in just the right way.  Who will get the elixir of life or will any of them?  Can Belle be saved and what will that mean for Gambit and Rogue? Gambit is one of my favorite Marvel characters with his Southern charm that can sweet talk a bee out of its honey or charm a snake into doing its will.  I also love playing cards so I really love it when he uses them to explode things.  It was great reading how he joined the X-Men, though you really wanted the comic to keep going and find out what happened next.  What was really great was going back to New Orleans to read about his life back there.  Anytime you can find out about his history is great as he rarely gives anything away.  This was two fabulous comics.  I give it five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Gambit-Classic-Vol-1/dp/0785137297/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545225463&sr=8-1&keywords=gambit+classic      

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradey

Set in the 1950 English countryside this latest book in the series finds eleven-year-old Flavia de Lucia's father the Colonial has rented out the family home to a film crew for the holidays in a desperate attempt to earn some money to get them through until next year.  Daffy and Feely are pretty excited as their favorite actress is in it, Phyllis Wyvern.  Also in it is the famous actor Desmond Duncan and the actress Marion Trodd.  And as usual the same Brish crew she always works with including the same director she always works with Val Lampman.  Wyvern confesses to Flavia that she is actually fifty-nine-years-old.

Wyvern gets Lampman to agree, though he is not happy about it, to put on a show for the locals to raise money for their church roof.  Wyvern and Duncan do the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and Gil Crawford, a local, misses her lighting, so she comes over and slaps him across the face and then goes back to the stage where the lighting is now correct and performs perfectly, but the Vicar who had planned on having others perform after her, decides against it after that display.

Soon they realize that the snow is too much and everyone is snowed in and must stay for the foreseeable future.  Flavia can't sleep and goes out in search of some company with Phyllis whom she knows stays up late watching her old films.  She can hear one end as she makes her way across the house.  When she goes into her room she finds her dead with film wrapped around her neck in a bow.  She goes and gets the trusted Dogger and he says she was indeed strangled and to go and get the doctor.  Flavia had noticed that someone had made up her face and dressed her in the outfit that went with the film that was playing.

Who killed Phyllis? Was it Val who it turns out is her son? Or one of the other actors? Or was it Gil or one of the members of the crew for some hidden reason?  Flavia also plans to set off some explosive fireworks for Christmas Eve from the roof of the house.  She has also been working on her secret birdlime formula for Father Christmas that she plans on using to slather on top of the chimneys so that he'll stick to them, or he won't and that'll be proof that he doesn't exist.  Will she find out one way or another?  Will she be able to figure out who killed Phyllis in time too? Flavia is a true delight to read about with her chemical mixtures and fanciful detecting trying to outwit the actual detectives while seeking the Chief Inspector's approval at the same time.  Meanwhile, her two sisters treat her admissibly and she is forced to return the favor except when they are holding their truces.  And she will need help from her sisters to solve this case.  This is a wonderful book and a great read. I give it five out of five stars. 

Quotes

Older sisters are much alike the world over: half a cup of love and half one of contempt.

-Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 34)

Theater, I suppose, is a form of mass mesmerism, and if that’s the case, Shakespeare, despite his chemical shortcomings, was surely one of the greatest hyponists who ever lived.

-Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 129)

Because it is a well-known fact that more than two men shut up together in an enclosed space for more than an hour constitute a hazard to society.

-Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 159)

Perhaps, I thought, whenever we began to breathe the breath of others, when the spinning atoms of their bodies began to mingle with our own, we took on something of their personality, like crystals in a snowflake. Perhaps we become something more, yet something lesser than ourselves.

-Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 163-4)

One does not preach sense to a Church of England clergyman.

-Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 165).

          Well, there are those of us who create because all around us, things visible and invisible are                crumbling. We are like the stonemasons of Bablyon, forever working, as it says in Jeremiah,
          to shore up the city walls.

          -Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 201-2)

          She was more than brave. She was British.

         -Alan Bradley (I Am Half-Sick of Shadows p 222)

  

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Am-Half-Sick-Shadows-Flavia-Novel-ebook/dp/B004X6PSCW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545065982&sr=8-1&keywords=i+am+half+sick+of+shadows+by+alan+bradley

The New 52! Suicide Squad Volume 4: Discipline and Punish by Ales Kot (Writer), Matt Kindt (Writer), Patrick Zircher (Artist), Rick Leonardi (Artist), Andy Owens (Artist), Derek Fridolfs (Artist), Marc Deering (Artist), Sami Basri (Artist), Keith Champagne (Artist), Carmen Carnero (Artist), Jason Keith (Colorist), Brad Anderson (Colorist), Wil Quintana (Colorist), Matt Milla (Colorist), Jeromy Cox (Colorist), Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer), Taylor Esposito (Letterer), Sal Ciprianao (Letterer), and Dezi Sienty (Letterer)

In the previous comic the Joker wasn't really dead and he kidnaps Harley but she escapes and goes back to the Suicide Squad.  Boomerang also comes back. Voltaic joins the Squad. He has the power to harness electricity.  Waller sends them after Red Orchid, Yo Yo's sister,  who has something she wants and who isn't working alone. Things go down badly and not everyone makes it out alive.

Waller uses a secret serum on Deadshot to bring him back from the dead and now the Suicide Squad consists of him, Voltaic, Harley, King Shark, Cheetah, and the Unknown Soldier.  The newest member who doesn't work in the field is James Gordon Junior, a psycho serial killer, who will work with her in analyzing the members and situations.

Their first mission is in Las Vegas where a group of people hope to hypnotize everyone to their message.  Deadshot and Harley are on the ground where Deadshot happens to look at a billboard where the hypnotic tracer was located.  Unknown soldier happened to spot some activity on a billboard and investigated it and found some goons planting the tracer and got rid of them and reported back. Deadshot finds one of the goons on the ground and uses enhanced interrogation to get the information that he works for someone called Mother.  Waller knows exactly who that is and that's bad news especially in who she works with.  Also included are a comic about Harley and a comic about Deadshot. The one about Deadshot leads to volume five.  I loved how the writer put cards under the characters giving their names and a description of them like King Shark. His name is Trixie. Hi likes to Party. or Harley Quinn. Diplomat. or James Gordon Junior. Serial Killer. Analyst. Excitable.  I really love this series.  The introduction of James Gordon Junior really adds to it and I'm very interested to see where it is going to go next.  I give it five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Squad-Vol-Discipline-Punish-ebook/dp/B00JRILLTU/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544793588&sr=1-2&keywords=the+new+52+suicide+squad

DC Rebirth Edition Wonder Woman Volume Two by Greg Rucka (Writer), Liam Sharp (Artist), Bilquis Evely (Artist), Mirka Andolfo (Artist), Nicola Scott (Artist), Scott Hanna (Artist), Mark Morales (Artist), Andrew Hennessy (Artist), Raul Fernande (Artist), Laura Martin (Colorist), Romulo Fajardo Jr (Colorist), Jodi Wynne (Letterer), and Dave Sharpe (Letterer)

In the previous comic Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor wind up working together to help save a group of women including Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva, aka Cheetah from Urkkartaga in the wilds of the jungle.  Steve works for an organization and his boss, Commander Etta Candy is worried about her boss Sasha who has been acting strangely.  Sasha takes something from one of their investigations to give it to the people she really works for and Etta follows her and finds out that Sasha is really a robot.  Wonder Woman has been struggling with the different versions of the truth that are warring inside of her and finally arrives at the answer. The gods have been lying to her for the past seven years. She hasn't been going back to the island of Themyscira where she was born. When she set out on her mission she was told that she would never be able to return, but she believed that she was able to. She has lost her faith.

Dr. Minerva clues in Etta and Steve on Godwatch who are behind everything including making Minerva Cheetah.  There's Dr. Veronica Cale who is behind it all because two gods Phobos and Deimos stole her daughter's face away seven years ago.  They want to go to Themyscira and the only way to get there is through Diana.  They will give her her daughter's face back if she does this.  So her and her business partner Dr. Adrianna Anderson built Cyberwalk, a creation that allows the wearer to get close to someone and pick up memories and thoughts from someone it touches.  The suit killed Anderson, but Cale brought her back to life as Doctor Cyber, an all-knowing computer AI system.  Then there's the muscle: Poison and Colonel Maru's mercenary team.

Steve and Etta go to break Diana out of the mental hospital while Minerva goes to try to talk some sense to Cale.  While Minerva is there she agrees to become the Cheetah again.  Diana decides its time to stop hiding out and return to Themylscira for real this time and fight the evil that is threatening it and try to save Barbara Ann.  Also included in this book is a Christmas comic with Wonder Woman and Batman that is decidedly too short though the artwork is really good.  There is a lot of information crammed in this comic, but it is not hard to follow at all even though it hops around in time a great deal.  It's hard to feel sorry for Dr. Cale when she's portrayed as a bit of a bitch before the gods come in and destroy her life.  But Dr. Anderson is a really nice person and a great character who gets warped when she is turned into Doctor Cyber the evil AI system.  This is such a wonderful book that really explores the human condition.  I give this comic my highest rating five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Rebirth-Deluxe-2016-ebook/dp/B07F17P97R/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1544557595&sr=8-7&keywords=wonder+woman+dc+universe+rebirth

Toucan Keep a Secret by Donna Andrews

Meg is taking charge of locking up the church at night and looking after the toucan in the pastor Robyn Smith's office. Robyn has been babysitting the toucan for a parishioner who is in the Navy and away on a tour of duty.  Meg and the church have been taking over Robyn's duties since she is pregnant and on bedrest.  There are those against this, but these are the same people against having a female pastor or females on the vestry council, who made decisions about the church.

One of those people, Mr. Hagley, Meg finds dead in the crypt where the cremated remains are found one night when she is locking up and she hears noises outside that lead her there and his body.  She notices a crowbar as though someone was trying to remove someone from the crypt.  In the process, several of the ashes of different graves were disturbed as well as some of the plaques.  Also found was a gorgeous ruby ring that may or may not be real.

Mr. Hagley had been having financial difficulties and wanted to have his wife's ashes removed from the crypt in order to sell the expensive plot to someone else, but the process was taking some time and he might have decided to take matters into his own hands it seems which is why he was in the crypt that night.  Then someone else came along perhaps looking to unearth the Van der Lynden jewels that went missing during the heist back in the 1980s.  It was said that Mrs. Van der Lynden faked a jewel robbery at a New Year's Eve party complete with thieves hired by her son, Archie.  But things went wrong and two of the thieves were shot dead and the rest were eventually captured, but the jewels were never recovered leaving some to believe that Mrs. Van der Lynden had hidden them somewhere. She had been hoping to get the insurance money but she never did.  She died six years later pretty much broke.  Her son Archie was sent to prison for his part in the robbery, but he denied that his mother had anything to do with it.  He said that he was going to sell her jewels because he needed the money.

When Meg goes to check out the church by doing a drive-by, she notices a flashlight bobbing up and down in the rooms and so she stops and calls the cops. Then she finds her car window being shot out by a gun. She hightails it out of there, but circles back once the police have arrived at the church.  Someone thinks that the toucan is a parrot and can identify them and wants to take out the bird. Only Meg took the bird home with her the night of the murder. Toucan's, by the way, cannot talk.  Meg takes the bird to the zoo for safekeeping.

Meg's dad wants to do a reenactment of the robbery and Meg's for that if it will keep him out of Chief Burke's hair about the murder.  Problem is he wants her to be involved with it and she's quite busy with her own stuff and with following up on leads in the investigation herself.  She's supposed to be asking the families affected by the break-in how they would like things handled. If they would still like to remain at the church and if so if they would like to have a ceremony when their ashes are replaced.  Could this be placing Meg in contact with a killer who hid the jewels in the crypt inside their relative's ashes, since everyone whose ashes were disturbed has something to do with the robbery?  Mr. Hagley was not well liked and won't be missed by really anyone.  But there's a larger mystery here to be solved.  I really loved this book. The characters were great, such as Dr. Womble, the retired priest who could wander off on different topics and we got to see an old fan favorite Ragnor again and his wild house since this was the house that the robbery took place at.  The plot is fun to read too.  I give it four out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Toucan-Keep-Secret-Langslow-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0791JWR91/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544450905&sr=8-1&keywords=toucan+can+keep+a+secret

Sleepless by Sarah Vaughn (Writer), Leila Del Duca (Artist), Alissa Sallah (Colorist), and Deron Bennett (Letterer

Pyppenia's father has died and now a new king, his brother is being coronated.  Pyppenia's is the daughter of the old king's mistress but is considered legitimate because of who her mother is.  Her mother is a star reader and all their children are considered legitimate.  Pyppenia's looking forward to seeing her mother again, but her mother who has read the stars feels that it is best that she stay where she is for now and sends Nnende instead.

Pyppenia is guarded by a young man, Cyrenic, who fought in the wars and has taken the sleepless vow to protect her.  This means that he will not ever sleep again and will spend his time protecting her till he dies.  The problem is that some begin to see things and then go crazy.  Eventually for all of them going without sleep will kill them one day if something else doesn't do it first.

There have been two attempts on Pyppenia's life. One overt and one hidden in poisoned food that the dog detected.  Is the King's daughter behind it? She certainly hates her enough. Or is it Lord Helder who wants her out of the way because the King wants him to marry her and he wants to marry the princess in order to gain power.  Can the king be trusted? Also, Cyrenic and Pyppenia have feelings toward each other that they never act upon but the undercurrent is there.  This is a fascinating story of palace intrigue and some magic with the ability to foresee the future. It holds interesting characters and a great plot. I give it four out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Sleepless-Vol-1-Sarah-Vaughn-ebook/dp/B07CTY3SK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544202619&sr=8-1&keywords=sleepless+comic

Shelter In Place by Nora Roberts

On July 22, 2005, many lives were changed forever in Rockport Maine, a town not far from Portland.  Three teenage boys, JJ Hobart, Kent Whitehall, and Devon Paulson went on a shooting spree at the local mall.  JJ took the theater and the other two started in the mall proper. They were to meet inside the mall, but Simone Knox had seen someone covered in blood come out of the theater she was about to go back into after having gone to the bathroom.  She immediately called 911 and they told her to go back to the bathroom and hide, which saved her life.  By calling the police she saved lives and ended the life of JJ because the police arrived quickly and officer Essie McVee shot him down.

But still, around 96 people died, including her best friend Tish and her other best friend Mi-Hi Jung was put in the hospital in critical condition, but pulled through.  Others weren't so lucky. Reed Quartermain had been going to ask Angie out on a date and she died while he survived and managed to save a four-year-old boy.  His best friend Chaz hides some people in the shop he works at in the back.

Time passes and Simone decides to go to Columbia in order to be near Mi who chooses that college because it's in New York City which is where Tish planned on going to after high school in order to pursue her dream of being an actress. Mi dreams of being a scientist, but Simone doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. She really just doesn't want to think about much of anything, especially that night.  Her grandmother Ci-Ci is a famous artist and believes that Simone has an artistic bent but doesn't want to push her in any direction.  Simone's parents want her to be a lawyer and marry well.  Finally, Simone must choose what she wants to do with her life.

Reed knows what he wants to do with his life. He wants to be a cop. He goes to the Academy after college and joins the force that Essie McVee is on in Rockport and the two deepen their friendship.  McVee finds love with a professor and marries.  Reed dates, but doesn't find anyone in particular to love or that one house he's been looking for to own that is calling to him, so he stays inside his ratty apartment. Meanwhile, he and Essie get notified when one of the victims of the massacre die and Reed is beginning to notice a pattern with the deaths even though some are accidents some are suicides, some are murders.

It turns out that the real brains behind the massacre was Patricia, JJ's younger sister. She manipulated the three boys into doing what she wanted them to do. She planned the event for Christmas time so there would be maximum damage, though. They jumped the gun and got killed in the process. Patricia plans on getting revenge for her brother's death by killing the survivors.  She'll start off by killing just three a year so no suspicion will fall on her endeavors.  She's saving McVee and Simone for last.

This is an amazing book and quite a departure for Roberts.  There's a touch of romance, but it's certainly not the main component.  Not by a long shot.  It examines the lives of people touched by tragedy who try to move on with their lives in the best way they know how.  And how the one person who orchestrated it goes after the remainders in honor of the brother she loved so deeply.  As you read, the survivors pull their lives back together and make successes of themselves while Patricia slowly falls apart and devolves into a horrific monster. This is one of Roberts best works.  I give it a strong five out of five stars.

Bloggers Note* Roberts set this book in Stephen King country and gave it a King touch with a psychopath on a rampage.  CiCi claims to be psychic. And there's an Overlook hotel. No idea of what happens inside this hotel, though.  In the book she wrote before this one, Year One, it has been compared to King's Stand.  Is she further exploring King's world? This is just one blogger's speculation.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Shelter-Place-Nora-Roberts-ebook/dp/B076BGDMK9/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1544015538&sr=8-3&keywords=shelter+in+place+nora+roberts

How the Finch Stole Christmas! by Donna Andrews

The town is putting on a performance of A Christmas Carol and they have hired a slightly over-the-hill actor, Malcolm Haver to play the lead. The problem is that Haver drinks too much is belligerent, and isn't always there for rehearsals.  No one in town will sell him booze, but he is getting it somewhere. One night Meg Lagslow follows him out into the county and finds his "bootlegger" and plenty more besides that. It turns out the guy is running a puppy mill, is selling some of the illegal Gouldian Finches that her grandfather's friend from Fish and Wildlife is working on a sting to shut down, a Tiger, and an assortment of other wild animals.  She takes pictures and looks in the window of the house and sees a little old lady in a wheelchair with a million cats too.

Meg takes this information to Chief Burke as well as to her grandfather. They plan a dawn raid. Meanwhile, Ekaterina, who came from Russia and runs the Caerphilly Inn, is keeping a close eye on Haver and what is in his room such as alcohol, and his movements within his room.  That night Haver doesn't come home and his agent doesn't come back til late.  Haver shows up passed out at another Inn so he sort of has an alibi for the murder of his bootlegger whom they find the next morning when they do the raid on his house.  His neighbor, though, who hated him for harming his sheep with his dogs is missing.  And it's possible the people he was selling the animals to might have killed him.

Meanwhile, the play must go on and it's not looking good for Haver because Meg found a gun in his dressing room that matches the type of bullets that killed the bootlegger.  Michael may have to go on in Haver's place and quite frankly with all the absences Haver's has Michael's been filling in any way so he's prepared.  But this is Jamie and Josh's, Meg and Michael's kids first play. Will it be ruined?  This delightful mystery is perfect for the holidays.  There's not much of a murder to solve, but you don't really care because the book is so much fun.  Meg and the gang really deliver.  I give this book four out of five stars.

Quotes

I am becoming somewhat anxious. He comes from Los Angeles, you know, California. They do not have snow in California. I suspect he knows even less about driving in the snow than Virginians do.

-Donna Andrews (The Finch That Stole Christmas! p 89)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/How-Finch-Stole-Christmas-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B06Y17ZKGS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543843947&sr=8-1&keywords=how+the+finch+stole+christmas














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Black Panther: Avengers of the New World Part Two by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Writer), Leonard Kirk (Penciler, Inker), Marc Deering (Inker), Walden Wong (Inker), Laura Martin (Colorist), Matt Milla (Colorist), and VC's Joe Sabino (Letterer)

In the previous comic, the world of Wakanda has come together and formed a new government, a constitutional monarchy. Representatives from each region will sit on a council and meet regularly with T'Challa and discuss Wakanda business. When he can't be there his mother Ramonda will fill in for him. They are experiencing problems though.  A door has opened and half snake half man creatures have come out and began attacking the people.  Black Panther kills them off, but he realizes that the Orisha, the Wakanda gods have not been present protecting the people, including Bast, the goddess that gives him his power.  More doors open with more creatures coming out and they tell him that the "Originators" is coming.  The Originators are the gods before the Orisha took over.  Ras the Exhorter is leading the people to worship a new god called Sefako.

T'Challa and Shuri figured out that some of the portals weren't real, but holograms using sound rather than light.  Meanwhile, Aneka and Ayo tracked down Asira an old friend of T'Challa's who was kidnapped and taken to Azania and found themselves walking into a trap. Now they are in the hands of Klaw who is not alone, he is with Ezekiel Stane, Doctor Faustus, Zenzi, and Ras.

Klaw has used Faustus's ability to control other's with his voice and Zenzi's ability to liberate others hearts to create a device for his arm that will cause his enemies to bend to his will. His goal is to bring his sister back out of the coma she is in.  Klaw uses reverbium since he can't get his hands on vibranium. It has dangerous drawbacks.

Eden, the portal maker, takes Shuri to go and get Dr. Franklin out of jail to help in their cause.  They need the physicist as well as the man with the superpowers.  He fights with Black Panther, Shuri, and Storm on a landscape that has suddenly become a desert.  A request has been made to Ramonda to rescue Aneka and Ayo and at first, she says she can't due to the fact that it has to go before the council, but then Dora Milaje appears in Midnight Angel outfits to go and fight against Klaw and his gang and rescue Aneka and Ayo.  Will the Orisha gods reappear? Will they be able to stop Klaw from achieving his goal?  This book is even more exciting than the first part with the reintroduction of Dr. Franklin and Klaw with his sad backstory that almost makes you pull for him.  I give it five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Black-Panther-Vol-Avengers-2016-2018-ebook/dp/B07C7HRTRV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543597408&sr=8-1&keywords=black+panther+avengers+of+the+new+world+part+2

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Eddie was the top maintenance man at a seaside theme park at the Ruby Pier and on his 83rd birthday gave his life trying to save a little girl's life.  Now, he's in heaven meeting the first of five people who will explain his life to him.  The first person is The Blue Man, a sideshow freak at the Ruby Pier. He drank too much silver nitrate to cure his nerves and it turned his skin blue so he joined the show to make a living.  Eddie's ball ran out into the road just as he was learning to drive a car and he slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting him, but the shock to his heart caused him to have a heart attack and die.  Here he learns that life is short.

Then he meets with his old Army Captain from World War II when he was captured in the Philippines.  They were starved and tortured, but one night they overtook their captors and decided to burn down the buildings and village they were being held in.  Eddie could have sworn he saw someone in one of the buildings and ran into it to save whoever it was inside, but it was just a shadow.  His fellow soldier tried to stop him but was unsuccessful and Eddie was getting burned so his Captain shot him in the knee to bring him down so they could get him out of there.  Losing his knee meant losing his dreams on the life of becoming an engineer because for him the War had really become real for him at that moment.

Eddie will go on to meet the Ruby of Ruby Pier and learn about forgiveness and letting go and then meet his wife.  The fifth person will be a complete surprise and someone you won't be expecting, which makes the book worth reading.  Eddie is a man who does not think much of his life and while this book shows the good and the bad, Eddie is more than just a maintenance man for a theme park.  This book shows how we are all special in our own way and that there are five people waiting in heaven to explain to us why. I was expecting this book to be a real saccharine read that overdid the waterworks, but I was wrong. It wasn't sugary at all but rather realistic in the parts that deal with life on earth and logical with the ones that deal with the afterlife.  I can't promise, though, that it won't keep away the waterworks as my book club read this book and some of them cried during parts of it, but it doesn't manipulate you into crying.  I have to admit this is a very good book and I give it four out of five stars.

Quote
That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven p 48)

Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven p 49)

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven p 50)

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped.  Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others, crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces beyond repair.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet In Heaven p 104)

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them.  They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them—a mother’s approval, a father’s nod—are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet In Heaven p 126)

People say they “find” love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find is a certain love.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet In Heaven p 155)

Life has to end. Love doesn’t.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet In Heaven p173)

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.

-Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven p 141)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Five-People-You-Meet-Heaven-ebook/dp/B000PLXEU2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543414436&sr=8-1&keywords=the+five+people+you+meet+in+heaven

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

Set in 1950s Bishop's Lacy, England, at the church fete, eleven-year-old Flavia de Lucie decides to get her fortune told. But when things go wrong she accidentally sets fire to the tent when the gypsy gives her a fortune about her dead mother and runs off.  She comes forward to Dr. Darby to confess what she has done and offer to pay, but the gypsy woman, Fennella, says it was an accident and there are no charges.  However, Fennella does not have a place to stay so Flavia offers up the Palings, an area of land on her dead mother's estate for Fennella and her horse and caravan to stay.

On the way there, Mrs. Bull, who is camped out there, freaks out and accuses Fennella of stealing her baby that went missing several years ago.   Flavia gets her out of that situation and settled for the night.  The next morning when she goes to check on her she finds her barely alive having been bludgeoned nearly to death.  She sets out for the doctor's and brings him back and Fenella's life is saved, though she is in a coma.

Her granddaughter, Porcelain comes down to look after her grandmother.  Flavia hides her in her section of the house, which she uses sometimes when she isn't accusing Flavia of attacking her grandmother because Flavia's father kicked her grandparents off of the property years ago which caused the death of her grandfather.

But there are others up and about that night acting mysteriously.  Brookie Harewood.  is paid money by his mother to stay away.  But that doesn't seem to be enough money because he was seen by Flavia inside her home returning two fancy fireplace pokers.  Then not long after that Porcelain and Flavia find him hanging from the Poseidon's trident with a lobster fork shoved up his nose.  She calls in Inspector Hewett but doesn't tell him about Brookie's break-in at Buckshaw, her home.

Flavia plays inside her laboratory concocting chemical compounds that help her solve the mystery.  She will need the help from her odioius older sisters Feely and Daffy who abuse her awfully, but upon whom she will seek her revenge.  Did the same person attack Fennella and kill Brookie or were they separate crimes?  Why are there more than one set of fireplace pokers? Will Flavia figure out who the killer or possibly killers are in time?  Flavia is a delightful child who is clever, yet longs for a friend.  She hopes Porcelain will be that friend but is sometimes disappointed.  She is such a unique child that there is no one like her to be friends with her.  She constantly feels as though she is pitting her wits against Inspector Hewett and seeks his approval.  This is a fabulous book and I give it a four and a half stars out of five.

Quotes

There are times that I see, but do not observe.

-Alan Bradley (A Red Herring Without Mustard p 10)

“Love’s not some big river that flows on and on forever, and if you believe it is, you’re a bloody fool. It can be dammed up until nothing’s left but a trickle…” “Or stopped completely,” I added.

-Alan Bradley (A Red Herring Without Mustard p 155)

Chemistry has more gods than Mount Olympus and here in my solitude I could pray to the greatest of them: Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (Who, when he found a young assistant in a linen draper’s shop surreptitiously reading a chemistry text which she kept hidden under the counter, promptly dumped his fiancée and married the girl); William Perkin (Who had found a way of making purple dye for the robes of emperors without using the spit of mollusks); and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who probably discovered oxygen, and---more thrilling than even that—hydrogen cyanide, my personal pick as the last word in poisons.

-Alan Bradley (A Red Herring Without Mustard p 185)

I had always marveled at the way in which three clear liquids—nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and water—when combined could produce, as if by magic, color—and not just any color, but the color of a flaming sunset.

-Alan Bradley (A Red Herring Without Mustard p 244)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Red-Herring-Without-Mustard-Flavia-ebook/dp/B004C43FTS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543245766&sr=8-1&keywords=a+red+herring+without+mustard

       

DC Universe Rebirth Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Lies by Greg Rucka (Writer), Liam Sharp (Artist), Matthew Clark (Penciler), Sean Parsons (Inker), Laura Martin (Colorists), Jeremy Colwell (Colorists) Jodi Wynne (Letterer)

Wonder Woman doesn't know what the truth is anymore. Was she fashioned of clay or is she the product of the union of her mother and Zeus?  She wears the Helm of the god of war but did she get that from when a sailor crashed on the island asking for help and she was chosen to go fight Ares and in killing him became the god of war?  Her lasso tells her all the memories she has are true because she believes them to be true.

Olympus has been changed over to something guarded by Hephaestus and his creations.  Or to find her way back to the island, Themyscira, so she is in search of someone who can help her: Barbara Ann.  She is living in the jungle wilds and has been cursed and turned into the Cheetah by the god Urzkartaga who was looking for a bride, but hasn't been happy with what he has.  He turns women into worshipers of him and sacrifices the men as meat to eat.

Steve Trevor and his men are in country where Wonder Woman is, trying to capture a man named Cadulo who is kidnapping young women.  Cadulo is working for Urzkartaga and plans to be his vessel for his body, but they don't know that.  They're planning a rescue mission for the young girls and are wondering what Wonder Woman is doing there, though they think she's there to help them.  Then things go south for Steve and the guys as Barbara Ann and Wonder Woman try to plan a way to take down Urkkartaga.  This book connects with past books written like The New 52! Wonder Woman Series.  It ends on a real cliffhanger that leaves you wanting more.  The complex relationship between Diana and Steve is really great as is the one between her and Barbara Ann.  Wonder Woman is in a very dark place right now and will need help to find her way out.  On top of that something shady is going on within the organization Steve works for that his boss Etta must try to figure out.  This was a stellar comic. I give it five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-Rebirth-Universe/dp/1401267785/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1542979292&sr=8-2&keywords=dc+universe+rebirth+wonder+woman+volume+one

Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke

This book takes us back to when Hannah's father had just died and she had completed six years of college and just broken up with her professor boyfriend who married someone else.  Andrea is pregnant with her first child and is a happy homemaker. Michelle is a high school student acting in the school plays who is friends with Lisa.  There is, of course, no Mike or Norman as they haven't moved to Lake Eden yet.

Dolores, Hannah's mother spends most of her time in bed weeping and Hannah and her sisters are worried that she'll follow their father to the grave in her grief.  Grandma Knudson whose grandson is the local Luthern minister and Annie who runs the orphanage are powerhouses at getting things done.  They come by once again to visit Dolores and Hannah tells them of her worries. But they have just the thing to pull Dolores out of her depression. A project to help Essie, a local woman who owns the rundown, now shut down hotel who used to have storytime for the kids which gave the mothers a chance to get things done.

Essie fell down the stairs of the hotel and broke her hip and can't stay at the hotel to recuperate so she is staying at hospice until she can get better.  But Essie has declared that nothing would make her happier than to have a Christmas Ball like the one where she met her husband Alton all those years ago at the hotel.  Complete with a Christmas cake walk and a dessert buffet.  The problem is the hotel is in disrepair and needs to be fixed up and they need someone to spearhead the project. Would Dolores agree to take on this monumental task? Of course, she does and immediately feels better when she does.

Hannah, Michelle, and Lisa agree to make the cakes and desserts.  But Hannah will need a big freezer to hold the cakes they make in advance. Dolores agrees to buy one.  However, Michelle and Andrea and Hannah are talking about what Hannah wants to do with her life and she says that her dream is to open up a coffee and bakery shop.  Dolores hears her and lets her know that there is still money left in her college fund to put down on the old bakery that is being rented to buy in town if she is serious.

When Delores and Hannah go to the Hotel to get some things for Essie to have in the hospital they stumble across some old notebooks written faintly in ink. Essie tells them they can read them if they want that she was trying her hand at fiction but that she didn't finish the book because she couldn't figure out an ending. The story is about a young pregnant woman who works for her cousin, a mobster, and how she and her husband plan on turning him in and escaping the life.  He stays behind to face them like nothing is wrong because they shouldn't suspect and she sneaks out and mails off the evidence to the authorities, then gets on a train and heads off to Minnesota where no one will find her.

This book is alright in that it explains how Hannah got her start, but its a murder mystery series and there's no murder.  There's a tiny bit of a mystery at the end that she's kinda been stringing you along throughout the book if you've been wise enough to pick up on.  Overall, it was a bit of a disappointment.  Some of the recipes included are Cocoa Crunch Cookies, Ultimate Lemon Bundt Cake, Bacon, and Sausage Burritos, Chocolate Hazelnut Bon-Bons, and Minty Dreams Cookies.  I give this book three stars out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Murder-Hannah-Swensen-Mystery-ebook/dp/B078QSL9FY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542813701&sr=8-1&keywords=christmas+cake+murder

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

'Armand Gamache, who was the Commander of the Surete Police Academy last we saw, is now the Chief Superintendent of the Surete police of Quebec.  The book opens with him giving testimony at a trial and goes back and forth in time to tell the stories of a murder of a young woman and how the Surete plan on battling the drug problem in Quebec.

One day a cobrador del frac, a person dressed all in black, a black robe with a hood and in a black mask appears at the Three Pines Halloween party and then goes and stands outside on the square facing the shops.  It looks like Death personified.  But a cobrador del frac in modern times hunts down people who owe a debt and shames them into paying it. But the cobrador is older than that. There is a moral one that shames those have committed a moral debt into making it right and this cobrador seems to be this of this kind.  He has spooked the entire town and they are looking to Gamache to do something about it. He talks to him and tries to convince him to move on but to no avail.

Four friends are staying there that weekend as they do every year. Katie, Lea, Mateo, and Patrick. Mateo is a journalist who told Gamache about the cobrador as he did an article about them.  Lea is a politician and is married to Mateo and tried to get legislation passed for a drug bill named in honor of a friend of theirs who walked off of a top of a building while high. They blame the drug dealer who they were never able to find.  Katie had been dating him but just broke up with him to begin dating Patrick.  Katie and Patrick own a successful architect firm.

But they're not the only ones who know what the cobrador is.  Jaqueline who works at the bakery and Anton the busboy and sometimes cook at the bistro both know what it is.  Both of them used to work at the same house together. She was the nanny and he was the chef for a shady character named Antonio Ruiz who has gone back to Spain and has faced charges there that didn't stick but has also faced his own cobrador there.

Katie Evans is the victim which leads you to wonder was the cobrador there for her? What did she do in her past that was so horrible that she deserved to die over? Or was it something else?  She was found with the cobrador's costume on when she died.  Was someone trying to say something with that?  And what happened to the cobrador?

Also, Gamache is trying to fight the war on drugs, which he knows is lost, but he believes he can strike a devasting blow but it means acting incompetent for the better part of a year and lulling the criminal world into believing that the Surete are idiots and that they can do whatever they want before the Surete finds a way to strike back in one fell swoop. It comes at a heavy cost, though and not just that they and those involved in the scheme may lose their jobs, but that some may lose their lives.

This novel won the 2017 Agatha for Best Mystery and was a finalist for the 2018 Anthony best series/novel, as well as a finalist for the 2018 Lefist and McCavity.  It really keeps you guessing. You don't even know who is on trial at the beginning of the novel and don't figure it out until the very end.  Penny uses some very good sleight of hand to keep you from figuring out this book.  I figured out pieces but never the whole picture.  It also takes a cold hard look at the drug problem, especially the pharmaceuticals and the damage they do and how hard it is to prosecute them when drug dealers change the formula by a few degrees making it a different drug altogether and one that isn't illegal and trying to keep up with the latest designer drugs.  Quebec is on the border of the U.S. and with it harder to get drugs across the Mexico border, some see it as easier to get them across the Canadian border.  This is an excellent book and one really worth reading.  I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

 And Lacoste remembered the advice given to Mossad agents.  Advice Lacoste had found abhorrent, wrong on ever level. Until it had been explained. The instruction given the Israeli agents, if they met resistance during an assault, was kill the women first.  Because if a woman was ever driven so far as to pick up a weapon, she would be the most committed , the least likely to ever give up. Kill the women first.  Lacoste still hated the advice. The simplicity of it. The baldness of it. But she also hated that the philosophy behind it was almost certainly true.

-Louise Penny (Glass Houses p 290)    

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Houses-Novel-Inspector-Gamache-ebook/dp/B01N9ZULCJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542632386&sr=8-1&keywords=glass+houses+by+louise+penney

Elevation by Stephen King

Elevation is not your typical Stephen King novel in that it is only 146 pages and the book is smaller than the typical book making it even shorter than that which, if you read King's books is highly unusual as his books can be used as a doorstop or a weapon in killing someone they're so long.  It's also not a horror novel, so in that way, it's not typical. But it's still typical King in that something unusual is going on and that it takes place in his most famous town of Castle Rock.

Scott Carey a divorced architect has decided to confide in his friend a retired doctor, Bob Ellis that according to his scale he is losing weight even though he still looks the same with the slight belly roll over the belt.  He also weighs the same naked as he does with clothes on that have five pounds of coins in his pockets which brings the total up to about fourteen pounds.  He's losing a pound or two a day.  Ellis suggests going to a hospital to figure out what's wrong with him, but Scott knows that they won't be able to figure out what's wrong with him before he dies and he wants to just live his life.

Scott's next door neighbors are a lesbian couple Misty and Deidre and they have a contentious relationship because when they run in the neighboorhood they allow their dogs to poop on his lawn and don't clean it up.  They deny that their dogs are doing it.  Scott captures it on camera and goes over there to confront them and Deidre, who has a chip on her shoulder, gets snotty when he says that this isn't how good neighbors solve things like this.  That his intent isn't to get them in trouble with animal control only to fix the problem.

Misty comes by to explain Deidre and why she has the chip on her shoulder. They moved here from Boston because the restaurant market seemed perfect and the summer went well, but the fall hasn't gone as well as they had hoped and they need the locals to get them through the winter. And the locals have a problem with married lesbians.  It's like how dare they throw it in their faces.  This is an area that voted for Trump. And their restaurant Holy Frijoles a vegetarian restaurant is having trouble no matter how good the food is.

Castle Rock is having it's annual Turkey Trot marathon race that benefits the Rec Center. Scott hoping to try to win Deidre over to his side makes a bet with her that if he wins he will make a vegetarian dinner for her and Misty and if he loses the dogs can poop on his lawn and he won't say anything.  Deidre was a professional runner and isn't worried about losing, but Scott has been continuously losing weight and feeling lighter and believes that maybe he has a chance.

This book is filled with a special magic and not just that Scott is losing weight without appearing to.  It's the magic of the human spirit and how one man can make a difference.  This is King at his greatest examing people and seeing the best and the worst, but leaving you feeling pretty good about the world, hence the title of the book Elevation.  I give it five out of five stars.   

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Elevation-Stephen-King-ebook/dp/B07CMKXZ2J/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542380687&sr=8-1&keywords=elevation+stephen+king

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate More

In 1987 Cinemax aired a documentary called Radium City based on the Radium Dial plant in Ottawa, Illinois that interviewed family members of victims and even a victim.  I vividly remember this documentary so that when this book was published recently I was anxious to read it and learn more.

The Radium Luminous Materials Corporations would begin sometime after 1913 with the advent of the radium paint by Sabin von Sochocky for use on dials for watches and later when the World War I started up to paint instrument dials. The plant existed first in Newark than in Orange, New Jersey.  The women were told it was harmless. They were told to lip the paintbrush in their mouth to get it wet, then dip it in the paint, then brush it on the dial, then repeat. This would mean that they would be ingesting radium.

Now at that time, the company was selling radium tonics and radium was a known treatment for cancer so it was seen as a wonder drug.  But at the same time, those that worked with it in the company were missing pieces of their fingers and had burns.  The women began to have problems with their teeth and jaws and their arms and legs.  But they weren't necessarily all working at the plant anymore or going to the same dentist so the pieces falling together that something was wrong would take a while.  On September 12, 1922, Mollie Maggia would die due to radium poisoning, but no one would know it.  She was only twenty-four-years-old.

Some of the women would begin to see the same dentists who believed that they had "phossy jaw", or phosphorous in their jaw which was causing the decay of their mouth.  The Radium Luminous Materials Corporations knew this to be false, but they also knew what was causing the women's troubles.  The women got together and decided to sue for damages once they had radium poisoning made an occupational hazard.

While they were making progress on their cases, the women in Ottawa, Illinois who were working for a different company were being told that radium was healthy and that the paint the women in New Jersey used was Mesothorium, a different type of paint.  It was still a type of radium isotope, but radium nonetheless.  For a short while, they used glass stylus to paint the dials on Westclox clocks and watches but the brushes were quicker.  The women weren't able to sue like they were able to in New Jersey, but they were able to go before the Illinois Insurance Commision to get money that way.  The problem was that with the radiation of the women from their checkups had cost the Radium Dial Company it's insurance, but was forced to leave $10,000 in an exchange with the IIC.  The company itself had left and gone to New York being run by its manager, while its owner had opened a new and separate company down the road where they told the women it was safe.

These women would paint the radium paint on their faces and their teeth for when they would go out on a date.  People could see them at night while they walked about town even without the paint because they glowed in the dark and they called them "ghost girls".  They lost their jaws, they lost arms, legs to a disease they didn't understand and were lied to about.  It affected their ability to reproduce and affected their children.  But their sacrifice wasn't in vain. Due to them, we have OSHA and the international Limited Test Ban Treaty on 1963. These women's bodies were examined by scientists throughout their life and after their death in order to better understand radium contamination.  This book is an incredible book that really examines the lives of these unsung women who should have been warned of the dangers of their working conditions and who fought to have compensation for medical costs paid out to them if they are lucky.  This was an American Tragedy.  I really loved this book and the lives it introduced me to. I give it five out of five stars.

Link to part of Radium City documentary:https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6itzf2
                                                                    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6itzel
                                                                     https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6itzer
                                                                     https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6iwlzr

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Radium-Girls-Story-Americas-Shining-ebook/dp/B01N7KMS7X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542197450&sr=8-1&keywords=radium+girls

Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas

In this latest of the DC Icons series that has focused in the past on Wonderwoman, Batman, and Superman, this one hones in on Catwoman.  Selena Kyle has a sister with cystic fibrosis and a mother who is rarely around but when she is she brings around abusive boyfriends and is abusive herself. So Selena and her sister Maggie are living on their own. Selena, a stellar student, and a star gymnast has basically dropped out of school in order to join the Leopard gang so she can earn money stealing and in the ring fighting for mob boss Falcone when people can't pay their debts and try to fight them off.  If they lose, they die.  Selena leaves them unconscious, but she knows that Falcone takes them and dumps them into the river already dead.

She has twenty-seven leopard tattoos for confirmed wins as an undefeated fighter.  The money goes toward medical bills for her sister. But her sister isn't getting better no matter how experimental the procedure.  Then the cops and a social worker show up their door and she attacks them which is the third strike against her record and means jail time especially since she's three weeks from turning eighteen.  That's when she's approached by a woman who wants to educate her in Italy. She agrees if they place her sister with a really good family that can take care of her.

Luke Fox, son of Lucius Fox the inventor of Wayne Enterprises, is an ex-Marine who suffers from PTSD and deals with it by being Batwing.  Like his father, he tinkers with devices so he works at Wayne Enterprises at that capacity as his dad is running the company now while Bruce is off on some mission that he won't tell anyone about.

Selena picked up the name cat while training with the League of Assassins due to her tattoos so when she made her helmet and her gloves she made them in the shape of a cat with claws.  Now, she's back in Gotham under the name Holly Vanderhees, socialite and has moved in right next door to Luke.  She shows up to all the galas and steals the riches right off of the people there without them knowing it.

Then Luke decides to trap her with putting an expensive painting on display at a gala. When Selena goes to steal it, Poison Ivey shows up to steal it too, so they agree to split the profits.  Selena has a run-in with Batwing while escaping and she makes a fool of him while getting away landing him on his ass and records the whole thing and sends the photos to the press the next morning.  Luke is not only not happy, but he also gets a call from Batman asking if he needs help.

Selena tells Ivey that if she wants to join her she needs to bring Harley Quinn aboard.  Ivy says that the only way Quinn will come aboard will be if she gets the Joker out of Arkham and she says she will do that.  Ivey is appalled as she doesn't like the Joker and she is in love with Harley and believes that the Joker is bad for her.  Harley agrees to join and the three go on a wild crime spree even breaking out of prison three of the Joker's men to help fight against Falcone's people.

Meanwhile, Holly and Luke are getting a little bit closer than either perhaps want, but both seem to enjoy.  Neither seems to have guessed who the other is, but Nyssa and Talia al Ghul have sent people to Gotham after Selena to kill her and stop her mission.  This is a fantastic book with great characters.  You don't want Selena, Ivey, or Harly to get caught, but then you don't want Luke to be made a fool of either.  And you don't don't want to see the League win either.  Maas has done an excellent job of bringing Selena to life. I'd love to read another book about her or one on Ivy or Harley.  I give this book five out of five stars.   

Quotes

“Being normal is a trap.” He blinked. Selina whispered as the song came to a close, “Don’t let it cage you.”

           -Sarah J. Maas (Catwoman: Soulstealer p 223)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Catwoman-Soulstealer-Sarah-J-Maas-ebook/dp/B077CQ6KW2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542042073&sr=8-1&keywords=catwoman+soulstealer

     

Ms. Marvel Vol. 4: Last Days by G. Willow Wilson (Writer), Adrian Alphona (Artist), Ian Herring (Colorist), adn VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

In the previous comic Kamara's parents, old friends have returned to New Jersey with their very eligible son, Kamaran who she is dreading meeting until she does and finds out that they have lots in common. Poor Bruno, her best friend who has a crush on her is getting his heart broken.  Then she goes up against the inhuman Killowatt who tells her that there is someone looking after Inhumans better than Medusa.  While she was changing in an alley, Kamaran saw her and now knows her secret. But he has a secret of his own: he's also inhuman.  Soon, though, Kamala finds that Kamaran is the one behind gathering the Inhumans and attacking the humans and stealing and whatnot.  She goes up against him and fights him with some success, but with a broken heart.

Kamala is now doubting herself for not seeing Kamaran for who he was.  But there is no time to be doing this as there is a giant planet in the earth's sky right now. On top of that Kamaran has kidnapped her brother and is going to expose him to the Terrigen Mist in the hopes that he will develop powers and be on his side.

Captain Marvel has arrived to help Kamala to find her brother and fight Kamaran and his minions.  Her brother has been exposed and what happens to him and what he chooses to do with them are in question.  Also, they have to deal with the giant planet in the sky.  Also included in this book is a  comic with the Amazing Spider-Man and Cindy Moon aka SILK with Ms. Marvel.  This is a really good comic that explores her family life and she gets to work with her hero for the first time the one she named herself after.  I really enjoyed these two cmoics and I give the overall book five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ms-Marvel-Vol-Last-2014-2015-ebook/dp/B017JEFFMW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541781164&sr=8-1&keywords=ms+marvel+4